Internet for Dummies, ITU and ETNO

LIRNEasia has been vocal against the feudal doctrines of ITU and ETNO on dwarfing the Internet. The duo has staged a Twitter Storm on October 10. They have, predictably, failed to justify the command and control of Internet. While responding to LIRNEasia’s CEO Rohan Samarajiva, the ETNO chief Luigi Gambardella said, “We know that today Internet economic model is not sustainable” (Click on the thumbnail at left).

Every day one Exabyte of data is said to travel over the Internet – enough data to fill 300,000 of the world’s biggest hard disks or 212 million DVDs.

If the price of Internet transit were stated in the form of an equivalent voice minute rate, it would be about USD 0.0000008 per minute—five orders of magnitude lower than typical voice rates.

The existing Internet model works extremely well, has boosted growth and competition and brought prices for data down to 100,000 times less than that of a voice minute.

A survey of 4300 networks, representing 140,000 direct exchanges of traffic has found that 99.5% of “peering agreements” were on a handshake basis, with no written contract and the exchange of data happening with no money changing hands.

The first bullet tells the size of Internet. Luigi has been preaching the reversal of subsequent three bullets. Sending party doesn’t pay in today’s Internet. Luigi says it’s not sustainable. I hope it’s clear to you.